Left Hand

Since those guys appeared but once, those writeups also include elements from an interesting pitch from Danny Donovan and Jeremy Rock, which wasn’t accepted by Marvel. Those non-continuity elements are kept separate from the published ones.

Yeah I know – many of Nicieza’s villain names during those years were a bit off. So just like I suggested changing “Pretty Persuasions” to “XTC” in the Psionex writeups, we will call “The Left Hand” a proper “La Mano Siniestra”. Use it if you like it.

The name “Left Hand”, given his powers, is also likely a reference to Ursula Le Guin’s classic The Left Hand of Darkness, itself building on a large number of “left-hand path” occult traditions (wikipedia).

Background

Real Name: Diego Casseas

Marital Status: Widowed

Known Relatives: Unnamed wife (deceased), unnamed daughter (comatose)

Group Affiliation: Folding Circle

Base Of Operations: Mobile

Height: About 6’1” Weight: About 170 lbs

Eyes: Black orbs with a dot (usually blue, red or violet) Hair: Black

Powers and Abilities

Like some other Marvel characters, La Mano Siniestra can tap the energies of the Darkforce Dimension. His two practical applications of this power are a blast of black energy erupting from his left hand, and the ability to transport himself and others by slipping inside and out of the Darkforce Dimension.

As with all teleporters, his power make him incredibly flexible and mobile ; in particular, the ability to pop in anywhere instantly almost guarantees his first blast will be a Blindside attack. With such an approach, he can kill most humans in one shot.

History

Diego Casseas was a private in the US Army in the early 1970s. The LRP group he was a part of, nicknamed the Half Fulls, had been inserted in Cambodia north of the Se Kong to patrol the Dus Bolovens plateau. Their orders were to find a suitable site for an air base that would be used to strike into North Việt Nam. They thus became the first Westerners to discover the temple on the plateau.

The Temple of the Dragon’s Breadth had been built around a natural wellspring of powerful mystical energies, the Well of All Things. The nomadic tribe that discovered the natural artefact settled near it, and spent decades building the temple and understanding the secrets of the Well. They eventually realized that, through a program of selective breeding, they could gradually – generation after generation – increase their affinity with the Well and thus their command of its mystical powers.

During the centuries, each new generation became more attuned to the Well, mystically more powerful and one step closer to the last generation that would achieve complete mastery and then world domination. By the 1970s, the young adults at the Temple of the Dragon’s Breadth were the next-to-last generation – their offspring would be masters of the world. However, said generation had to be bred from both the East and the West to fully access the Well ; for this reason they were called the “children of the Pact” between East and West.

The Half Fulls were the first Western people to come to the temple, just in time for the prophecy. The head priestess, Tai, ordered them to mate with local young women, promising them power and to be the fathers of the masters of the world. After some weeks, most men returned to the US with their designated bride. Casseas and his bride eventually fell in love and had a relatively pleasant life, conceiving a daughter.

Tragedy then struck, however – Casseas’ wife and daughter were caught in an accident in a falling elevator ; Mrs. Casseas died, and his daughter was left comatose. Knowing real magic existed, Casseas turned to mysticism as medicine failed to revive his daughter, studying the arcane arts for ten years and wandering throughout the world for instruction. He eventually grew strong enough in magic to gain some real power by extracting the Darkforce might that had been trapped in the body of his own comatose daughter.

The left hand of darkness

Having usurped his daughter’s power, Casseas, now calling himself the Left Hand (or La Mano Siniestra, in Spanish) rounded up the children of the other patrolmen. He named the resulting group the Folding Circle, and intended to lead them into gaining mastery over the Well. In so doing, however, he underestimated the might and guile of Tai, the priestess.

Much like Casseas was planning to hijack the Well, Tai wanted all of the power promised to the children of the Pact for herself. She killed the other members of her tribe, except for some warriors with no mystical abilities, then went to the US to manipulate the life of the one man who had refused to sire children out of faithfulness toward his wife, thus making the Pact incomplete.

La Mano Siniestra contacted the child of the faithful man, Dwayne Taylor aka Night Thrasher, promising to reveal what had happened to his father during the Việt Nam war. Thrasher thus joined the Folding Circle, and the entire crew went back to Cambodia and the Temple – with Thrasher’s group, the New Warriors, in hot pursuit. Once at the temple, the Circle confronted Tai ; Thrasher learned the truth about his parents, and the powerful Tai attempted to unfold her master plan to hijack all the Well’s power for herself.

Thrasher eventually killed Tai ; Thrasher, Tai and Casseas all fell into the Well, but Thrasher was saved in the nick of time by the Warriors.

In non-continuity events, La Mano Siniestra emerged from the well some years later, possibly with increased mystical might and knowledge, and reassembled the Folding Circle as a mystical and superpowered crime syndicate in New York City.

Description

See illustrations. The B&W ones are the out-of-continuity version, to be used if you think it’s cool.

La Mano Siniestra has some sort of unearthly voice – his word balloons are circled with thick black.

Personality

A grandiloquent, power-hungry man – although one might hypothesise La Mano Siniestra is so verbose and so open in his lust for power because of the loss of his wife and guilt for what he did to his own daughter.

Casseas is a smart, experienced, persuasive man, but he’s a bit too confident in his abilities and charisma – making him very direct.

Quotes

“I have something of far greater profit to give you than money. I am la mano siniestra . I will give you knowledge. Of yourself. Of power. I will become your guiding hand in darkness, you will become my bloodstrike. Come with me and learn.”

“What I thrive on, Fire, is power ! And so shall you ! Once you have been as properly introduced to it as I have ! Let the left hand of darkness guide your path, my Folding Circle ! Follow that path ! The path of power !”

“She was born. She breathes. She bleeds. She can die.”

DC Universe History

One of the best uses is presumably to have one or some of the PCs, with mysterious origins, be revealed as children of the patrol much like Night Thrasher. Or you could simply use the non-continuity version as a shady New York City syndicate – they may have had clashes with a small number of Titans.

Hm. Maybe Deathstroke (or, for an unusual twist, his wife) was a member of the Half-Fulls. Maybe Jericho and/or Ravager and/or Rose are children of the Pact ?

Alternatively, what if Jonathan Kent was a member of the patrol and when The Left Hand comes a‘callin’ to collect the children, he assumes Clark Kent is one of them? Or if you want to stick closer to the original story, just substitute Jonathan Kent for Night Thrasher’s dad, Superman for Night Thrasher, and the JLA for the New Warriors.

Another idea would be to make Alan Scott one of the Patrol and the mother of Jade and Obsidian would then be one of the temple women rather than Rose Canton.

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